TV Teen
'TV Teen:' the television version of a teenager, as depicted with the following cliches: * Played by 24-year old actors * Spotless, smooth skin, despite characters worrying about acne. Typically, only one pimple is barely visible onscreen. Real adolescents with acne have multiple, visible pimples, some disfiguring and requiring medicine. * Television teens do not curse, due to censorship. Movie teens curse more often than real ones. In Superbad, Jonah Hill's character said the "F-word" frequently. Real ones curse occasionally, unless they have post-traumatic stress disorder or "dirty talk" sexual fetishes. * Uses outdated slang from the screenwriters' childhoods. Non-fiction ones use contemporary slang of their period. * Television versions are celibate. Movie versions are all sexually active or promiscuous, causing one unplanned pregnancy or pregnancy scare. Non-fictional versions vary individually with looks and social skills. * Teenagers are stereotyped as prone to emotional outbursts and risk-taking behavior, particularly on shows with mostly-adult casts.' Real' Life ones' behavior varies individually with mental health and situation. * Teens can make surprisingly intricate''' revenge''' plans. In reality, only mass shooters do so. The rest plan their careers. * Television teenagers are falsely depicted as shorter than adults, when real ones are adult-sized. * They tend to have Poster Gallery Bedrooms. * Adolescents are often shown wearing black concert T-shirts with skulls, ripped jeans, dyed hair, braces on teeth and liking rock 'n'roll music, because they are supposed to be rebellious. Females wear halter, decollette, tube and midriff tops, hot pants and miniskirts to school, when real high schools send girls home for strict dress code violations, even at proms, causing sex discrimination lawsuits for slut-shaming. Also real high schoolers have various cliques, with different music, custom vehicles, body art, dress codes and hairstyles. * Their parents are either absent and apathetic or overly strict and overprotective, causing frequent quarreling. Actually, some parents are authoritative or assertive and others are abusive. * They tend to be trendy, especially on shows ending with a moral. Real Life includes geeks and those in religious fundamentalist families. Most trends and fads are harmless, despite moral panics. * Socially active, harmonious peer relations, with parents complaining of neglect of studies and family relations. Actually Real Life family problems are typically unrelated to adolescents' social lives, unless they're Gang Bangers or cult members. * They typically wear costly current fashions. In reality, this varies with personal taste, parenting styles and income. * In high school, they are mostly seen in halls or cafeteria and hardly ever in class. Real high schools have security and teachers rushing students into classrooms and bells signalling lunch period and classes. Bmup1p12.jpg|Freddy's bedroom Bmup1p14024.jpg|Freddy takes GED classes. Bmup1p13023.jpg|Freddy and Tasha go to work. Bmup1p11021.jpg|Freddy and friends make out at Club Acid. Bmup1p10020.jpg|Freddy and Steve in drag Bmup1p9019.jpg|Freddy and friends change into rave clothes. Bmup1p8018.jpg|Freddy and Tasha go on double date. Bmup1p7017.jpg|Freddy parties in hot tub with thought-form bikini models. 'Examples:' * Back To The Future averts the trope with Jerk Jock Biff's attempted drunken sexual assault of Lorraine, Marty's future mother in the Fifties. To Marty's surprise, his prude mom smoked, drank and cursed in high school. The cast were in their 20s. * Harry Potter ''franchise had the cast "snog" or "make out" but never definitely have sex onscreen. The actors on film were really in their teens but rarely had visible pimples. Only in the ''Deathly Hallows film did Ron Weasley say "bloody hell!" * All pre-1970s American "juvenile literature," such as Robert Heinlein's early science fiction had chaste adolescent characters and apolitical plots, except The Catcher in the Rye, Judy Blume's Iggie's House (about racism), Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret (about menstration), etc. (TV Tropes Wiki, 2006-18; Wikipedia, 2006-18). Bmupp3.gif|Tasha and Nora make out to Desert Hearts. Bmupp4.gif|Roberto and Francisco make out. Bmup1p6016.jpg|Freddy goes to literacy school 'In Brother Muscle:' * The main characters are Freddy Hartmann and Tasha Horner, Ordinary High School Students at Inner City School and US President High 'Chester A. Garfield "Gettin'" High. Freddy wears a high-top fade, multiple earrings, a purple sweatsuit to school, an orange uniform to work or a purple wig and showgirl costume when nightclubbing. Tasha wears purple dyed hair , a leather jacket and pink floral print shorts to school, orange uniform to work and a low-cut catsuit when clubbing. Her girlfriend Nora Garcia wears a devil costume to the '''nightclub. ' This is because they are all '90s "Club Kids" or 'Rave Culture. '''Their fashions are typical of the '1990s but subvert the cliche '''expensive clothes, ripped jeans, braces and concert T-shirts wardrobe. Their slang is contemporary, with a mixture of hip-hop, LGBT and Valley Girl slang. Their school scenes are mostly in class, since Freddy's '''Freak Lab Accident '''occurred in a chemistry classroom and Tasha had to dominate her Delinquent classmates to save her teacher from school violence. Freddy has only one poster, of a bikini model in his bedroom. * Freddy's mother is a '''Mama Bear and Education Mama who forbids him to drop out after getting mugged but later relents and allows him to drop out of Garfield High and enroll in a literacy school after his attempted Mass Murder' '''and Freak Lab Accident survival. She defends him when his cynical, burned-out principal tries to wrongfully blame the victim for his mugging. His '''Disappeared Dad' father visits him in the hospital 'after a 7-year absence due to divorce. Tasha' parents, Gorta and Zamm warn her to keep her 'extraterrestrial Flying Brick 'powers the family secret but support her when she uses them to defend herself from 'sexual assault 'by her elementary school classmates on a school bus. She quickly dominated her witnesses to believe she defeated her assailants with martial arts instead of super strength, however. They are busy running their restaurant, so they are not home when Tasha brings friends over to change clothes for Club Acid. * Brother Muscle says getting superpowers was " the best thing that ever happened to me, except sex." Ultraperson says "Flying's cool. Most fun you can have, with your tights on." Freddy and Tasha and their Gay/Lesbian Group friends all make out with their dates in drag or fetishwear at Club Acid, due to Rave Culture. Both Freddy and Amanda and Tasha and Nora have to break heavy dates to rescue Roberto Aguilera and Francisco, who were attacked in bed by Pundit and Puissance. Tasha had a same-sex crush on first her kindergarten teacher, then the '70s television superhero '' Amerizon, inspiring her to become the superhero, Ultraperson. Both occasionally use profanity symbols, "hells" and "damns" in dialogue, such as Freddy's "If I can do all this #@%^&, why should I live in fear?" after discovering all his '''Combo Platter Powers. Future Roberto is rather potty-mouthed in both English and Spanish. Club Acid shows same-sex dancing, Madonna's "Music" and makeouts and ecstacy use by some patrons, common in Rave Culture. Freddy sees one's hallucinations with his telepathy. His Super Hero Origin 'and 'Freak Lab Accident are caused by a Mass Murder attempt by a Delinquent, which frighten him and his mother into letting him drop out of his''' Inner City School, which is nicknamed "Gettin' High," presumably for 'drug '''traffic or widespread substance abuse (Lathan, 2013). 'Acknowledgements: *Lathan, D.V.,'' Brother Muscle & Ultraperson #1-2'' (1993; rev. 1999; publ. 2013) *''TV Tropes Wiki'' (2006-18) *''Wikipedia'' (2006-18) Category:Characters Category:Metafiction